A New York Times bestseller!
"Lively and absorbing. . ." -- The New York Times Book Review
"Engrossing." --Wall Street Journal
"Entertaining and well-researched . . . " *--Houston Chronicle
*
Three noted Texan writers combine forces to tell the real story of the
Alamo, dispelling the myths, exploring why they had their day for so
long, and explaining why the ugly fight about its meaning is now coming
to a head.
Every nation needs its creation myth, and since Texas was a nation
before it was a state, it's no surprise that its myths bite deep.
There's no piece of history more important to Texans than the Battle of
the Alamo, when Davy Crockett and a band of rebels went down in a blaze
of glory fighting for independence from Mexico, losing the battle but
setting Texas up to win the war. However, that version of events, as
Forget the Alamo definitively shows, owes more to fantasy than
reality. Just as the site of the Alamo was left in ruins for decades,
its story was forgotten and twisted over time, with the contributions of
Tejanos--Texans of Mexican origin, who fought alongside the Anglo
rebels--scrubbed from the record, and the origin of the conflict over
Mexico's push to abolish slavery papered over. Forget the Alamo
provocatively explains the true story of the battle against the backdrop
of Texas's struggle for independence, then shows how the sausage of myth
got made in the Jim Crow South of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century. As uncomfortable as it may be to hear for some,
celebrating the Alamo has long had an echo of celebrating whiteness.
In the past forty-some years, waves of revisionists have come at this
topic, and at times have made real progress toward a more nuanced and
inclusive story that doesn't alienate anyone. But we are not living in
one of those times; the fight over the Alamo's meaning has become more
pitched than ever in the past few years, even violent, as Texas's future
begins to look more and more different from its past. It's the perfect
time for a wise and generous-spirited book that shines the bright light
of the truth into a place that's gotten awfully dark.
